Wimbledon officials have been forced to bring forward the start time for Thursday and Friday following a third day of prolonged rain on Wednesday.

Play will now start at 1100 BST on the outside courts and 1200 BST on Centre Court and Court One.

There has been no play so far on Wednesday, and none likely until at least 1800 BST, and a number of matches have already been cancelled.

Martina Navratilova and Roger Federer were among those due to play.

Officials still hold out some hope that Andy Roddick and Guillermo Coria will complete matches, and that Greg Rusedski will begin against Davide Sanguinetti.

Delays on the first two days of the Championships left organisers 45 matches behind the schedule.

Should the bad weather continue, the referee's office could decide to use the middle Sunday, although that decision is some way off.

In Wednesday's remaining scheduled matches, Roddick leads Taipei qualifier Yeu-Tzuoo 4-2 and Coria's match against Wesley Moodie goes into a third day, with the Argentine third seed 5-3 up in the final set.